Lectures: A Few Do’s and Dont’s

Face the audience

Never turn your back on the audience. You don't know what might be going on behind you!

The audience is the multiplication of an acquaintance with whom you are speaking. You would not
turn your back on your partner in a discussion!

You need to see if people in the audience look blank (they did not understand what you said);
bored (you are not telling them what they consider new or interesting); or alert, attentive, even
enthralled by what you are saying.

Make eye contact with members of the audience on the left, on the right, in the middle. Make
them feel addressed.

Speak up and don’t rush

If people need to strain to hear you, they will tire and not pay attention

If your voice is weak, use a microphone

If you speak too fast, you are cramming information into your sentences, making it harder for your
listeners to follow you.

Limit the information to be presented

You give a lecture in order to teach. Thus, you expect your listeners not only to understand but
also to remember what you have said.

Some say you cannot hope to get people to remember more than three key concepts from a
lecture. They advise the lecturer to state the three concepts at the beginning of the lecture, repeat
the three concepts in the middle, and close by stating the three concepts at the end.

If you can flesh out these three concepts, one by one, with interesting details in a 45-minute
lecture, you will have done well.

If you fail to state key concepts but present a great many facts, few in your audience will
remember what you have said.

Key concepts are not headings (e.g. in ACLS: “The tachycardia algorithm”). They are insights or
important facts (e.g. Thiopental sticks around for many hours). Key concepts call for elucidation of
mechanisms and consequences, not for a shopping list or look-up table.

Three key concepts may be too few for a single lecture. But don't overwhelm people by
presenting too many important ideas at the risk of having them walk out without having learned
anything.

Slides:

Slides and their presentation can make or break a lecture!

A rule of thumb: Use no more than 1 slide per minute unless, for example, you use several
PowerPoint slides building up to a single point.
Some say that you should not have more than 6 lines on a slide. You can get away with putting
more on, but not many more. Another rule of thumb: Whenever possible, don’t use less than 28
font in PowerPoint slides

Newscasters often use categorical slides. They don't put details on the slide, but show, for
example, an explosion when they talk about war. That process evokes images difficult to capture
in words. In our world we also use images that are difficult to describe, such as x/y plots showing
important relationships.

The slide should supplement rather than mimic an oral presentation. You should be able to
present the material without slides and nothing but a blackboard to draw (literally) attention to a
special point. Indeed, some talks were spectacularly better when the projector failed, and the
lecturer was forced to talk without slides! Under those circumstances you cannot turn away from
the audience, and you actually have to explain what you are trying to get across!

Writing on a blackboard has the advantage of imposing a time constraint. As you write, the
audience can follow the emergence of your point. Think of that fact when you are tempted to rush
through your slides.

Prepare your talk without slides. Then look over your prepared remarks and decide which points
could be brought out with the help of a slide.

Never let the slides give the talk for you.

Never read the slides to the audience, unless you deem your listeners to be illiterate (In that case
show pictures instead of text).

If you have to explain what you are showing on a slide, or if you have to use a pointer, your slide
is complex. With power point slides complexities can be simplified by animation or by building up
to a teaching point with a series of slides.

Asking questions:

Interactive teaching can be of value. However, if you stop to ask your listeners, consider these
points:

1: Are you asking a question to which you know the answer? If so, you present or mimic a
typical school system. Be careful! Your graduate and post-graduate students or peers might
not be comfortable in the role of pupils. If a pupil gives a wrong answer, you are shown to
have failed to teach a point that you deemed important enough to deserve a question. The
pupil might be embarrassed, which is unlikely to draw him or her to your next lecture. Every
time you stop to ask a question, you are spending time asking and waiting for an answer
instead of giving information.

2: Are you asking a question to which you don’t know the answer? If so, you are running a
conference ("taking counsel") instead of a lecture ("a discourse on a given subject before an
audience for purposes of instruction"). Both formats can be valuable, but don’t lose sight of
which you are trying to utilize. In our Friday Morning Conference, we often blur the
distinction. A true conference honors the participating colleagues, young and old. If the
participants feel honored, or at least pleased, they are likely to attend often.